SINCE 'BLOCKADE' BEGAN.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 62, 13 March 1915, Page 5

SINCE 'BLOCKADE' BEGAN.

ELEVEN FAIL TO RETURN.

PROGRESS IN FLANDERS.

VALUABLE POSITION CAPTURED.

THE DARDANELLES BOMBARDMENT.

According to advices from Copenhagen eleven German submarines have been lost since the piratical "blockade" began a month ago. Four of these are officially admitted, while the other seven have been missing for periods ranging up to three weeks. No other recent victims have been claimed, the seven vessels reported at Lloyds yesterday having been sunk by the armed liner Eitel Friedrich, which has had the sublime insolence to enter an American port after sinking an American ship which was bound to Britain with a cargo of wheat. Opinion has been intensely roused in America as a result of the piracy, but the Neutrality Board has decided that the vessel shall be allowed to leave after repairs have been effected.

Sir John French reports that the success gained by the British at Neave Chapelle is most important, since it enables them to clear part of the Armentieres-La Bassee Road, and at the same time gives them the opportunity of a rearward attack on other of the German trenches.

In the Champagne area and along the Vosges the Allies have made solid progress, while their attacks have had the effect of pinning the Germans down to their trenches and preventing the dispatch of corps to reinforce the regiments operating against the Russians.

The concentration of half a million troops by each side round Prasnysz, in Western Poland, is the prelude to a big battle in that area, yon Hindenberg having apparently determined to capture the region which led to his undoing in his recent attempt to crush the Russian resistance northward of Warsaw.

The attack on the Dardanelles has been continued with a terrific cannonade. It is evident that the Turks will not be able to hold the straits, and already they are announcing that they may have to abandon the defence "for strategic reasons " ■while it is further reported that, to save the capital from bombardment, Constantinople is being converted into an "open" town by the removal of the guns from the forts.